


My Husband

by TigerPrawn



Series: Tiger's Mads x Hugh Rare Pair fics [115]
Category: Hannibal Extended Universe - Fandom, Hysteria (2011), The Salvation (2014)
Genre: 19th Century, Acceptance, Courtship, Fear of Rejection, Flashbacks, Hannibal Extended Universe, Happy Ending, Hysteria AU, Longing, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Podfic Welcome, Reunion Sex, Reunions, Riding, Separations, The Salvation - Canon Divergence/AU (Jon's wife and son die before he even leaves Denmark), Trans Male Character, Wild West Frontier, do not copy to another site, front hole penetration, historical trans character, non linear story telling, references to death and grief, trans Mortimer Granville, transgender history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:01:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27729196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerPrawn/pseuds/TigerPrawn
Summary: A chance meeting reunites old lovers.
Relationships: Mortimer Granville/Jon Jensen
Series: Tiger's Mads x Hugh Rare Pair fics [115]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1181198
Comments: 9
Kudos: 46
Collections: MonthlyRareMeat





	My Husband

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fiction. I have not done nearly enough research on this specific aspect of trans history to claim otherwise.  
> That said, I have tried to make this as faithful to reality as possible, and have drawn on some sources regarding trans and queer people on the frontier. 
> 
> Here are a couple of interesting links about trans people in the old west if you'd like to read further -  
> [The Forgotten Gender Non-Conformists](https://daily.jstor.org/the-forgotten-gender-nonconformists-of-the-old-west/)  
> [The Forgotten Trans History of the Wild West](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/trans-history-wild-west)

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/22015927@N07/50650296222/in/dateposted/)

_Mortimer moaned and clutched to Jon, feeling his lover tremble beneath him._

_Jon looked so deeply into Mortimer’s eyes as they moved together with Jon buried deep inside Mortimer’s wet and welcoming heat. It filled Mortimer with joy and love. To know that this man loved and desired him._

_He hadn’t expected that._

_He had expected less than nothing. Instead he had invited Jon into his room and in turn Jon had invited him to the new life he had built on the frontier. And Mortimer was determined to find no reason to decline. There was no need to run away again, as he once had._

_“I love you,” Mortimer gasped, words that were met with a hand grasping passionately around the back of his neck and pulling him down into an aggressive kiss._

_Jon had always been a man more of actions than words. And with his other hand gripping Mortimer’s hip, he fucked all the harder up into his lover until they were moaning into each other’s mouths._

_Within minutes Mortimer was crying out, his orgasm building steadily with the friction until it suddenly overflowed, his lover’s following as he spilled inside Mortimer with a grunt._

_As they caught their breaths, Mortimer collapsed onto Jon’s chest and he heard the man he considered to be his husband mutter softly, “I love you too.”_

*

“And what was she called before?”

“ _He_ doesn’t like me using that name.” Jon growled at his brother. The only person he’d ever confide this in, his glower making clear the boundaries there. There was silence for a moment, other than the clopping of their horses hooves as they headed back to the ranch house.

Peter raised his hands in placation, nodding. “I understand.” But then he shook his head, his brows raised and thoughtful as he pushed his hat back slightly. There was a damp sheen there, the heat of the day beating down on them as they rode across the property. “This place sure is wilder than I’d thought it’d be.”

After Jon’s first wife Marie had died in childbirth, the plans he’d originally made with his brother to become frontiersmen changed. The plan had been that once the babe arrived, healthy and strong, they would go and establish themselves, claim some land on the frontier and make their fortune. Once settled Marie and the child would join them, however many years it took. 

But it never happened. Instead Jon watched his wife and son die from birthing complications and Peter went alone to prospect and later work with cattle, before finally making a good sum in fur trapping. 

Meanwhile, Jon was a broken man. His life as he had envisaged it, had been ripped from him. Neither the frontier nor Denmark held any appeal for him. Instead he found himself traveling, roaming for a long while, until finally settling in London, England. It was a cold and grey place, reflective of his mood. At least to begin with. 

But then he’d met him. 

He had not been a him then. He had been a mousy, sharp young woman who drew Jon’s interest by her intelligence. She wished to be a doctor, a course not easily open to her, but the Lord knew she was capable of it. 

He called on her, and she seemed to enjoy him well enough. And over time he thought that he might convince her to be his wife. As the months wore on, London seemed to take on a brightness. A new colour and joy. And thoughts of Marie and the son he’d had named Kresten, faded along with the pain. 

And then one day she was gone.

Months passed where a new sense of loss came to him and no one seemed to know where the young woman had disappeared to and whether she might return. She was like a ghost. No family, only a dandy sort whose family had taken her in and he would not speak with Jon. Though they had been friendly enough before, it was clear that Edmund had been sworn to a secrecy he would never break. 

With nothing ahead of him, nothing behind him - lost - Jon wrote to Peter and began to make arrangements to join him in his venture. Making business in furs and doing well, they lived as comfortable a life as the frontier afforded. And then he had ventured to the city-

“His train comes in tomorrow?” Peter asked, drawing Jon back from those distant thoughts of a life that no longer seemed to be his. 

He replied only with a curt nod, to which Peter nodded back. 

“We should leave at dawn,” Peter suggested. He sounded hesitant, unsure, but then a smile broke over his face and he reached over, their horses walking side by side, and clasped Jon’s shoulder. “This man, he’s family now. I see happiness in you I don’t think I’ve even seen before, not even…” Peter trailed off and squeezed Jon’s shoulder before releasing it. 

Jon, a solemn man always, returned the smile with a soft one of his own. “Thank you brother. He is… he is my everything.”

Peter shook his head again, delighted disbelief and his happiness for Jon clear. “Imagine, if we had not made that business deal you were so sour on, had it been I that went to the city to make the delivery, you might never have found each other again.”

Jon said nothing, unable to speak through the heaviness in his chest, but he smiled all the same. He couldn’t stop himself. 

*

_Mortimer watched as Jon slept._

_One of the best things about his lodgings was that everyone minded their own business. It was a place for women running from overbearing family, for deserters, rustlers and hustlers. All manner of people that belonged no where else._

_And Mortimer was sure he was the only one there who went by his real name. And even that was not the one he was born to, but his real and true name nonetheless._

_He was safe here, to do as he wished and be who he was, and now to have the man he had fallen in love with share his bed with no concerns. Something he had never dreamed possible._

_Jon’s gentle snore lifted Mortimer’s heart._

_Jon had been his only regret when the time had come to finally leave London. He should never have started anything with the man, but he hadn’t been able to deny himself._

_He’d had to leave. Despite how much he’d loved Jon, he hadn’t been enough for Mortimer not to do what he needed to do. As much as Edmund had tried to convince him that it was worth the risk to tell Jon everything, the expected rejection was too much to bear. So instead, without a word to the man who had been courting him for a year, Mortimer left London for the Americas._

_With money and contacts from Edmund, he had arrived in New York but quickly moved West. The closer to the frontier the more diffuse and unruly life was. It was easy to be who you wished and go unnoticed. Something Motrimer had barely given himself chance to dream of._

_And it was a dream._

_Despite the lowly, if discrete, conditions he often found himself living in, Mortimer was able to cut his hair, get tailored clothes. He’d even encouraged the growth of a little facial hair with a butter like substance created from Jojoba seeds. By the time he’d begun to train as a doctor with the wealth Edmund had afforded him, no one thought of him as anything other than Mortimer Granville. And eventually, Doctor Mortimer Granville._

_As a year passed, and then another, Mortimer had never stopped thinking of Jon, wondering and wishing. Thinking about what might have been if he had explained the situation, that no matter the joy Jon brought him, he would never be happy until he could truly be himself. If nothing else, it would have been good to part on the truth._

_Jon murmured in his sleep and Mortimer rested his head on the man’s chest, running gentle fingers through the hair there._

_He had never been with another and it had been everything Mortimer could have wished it would be._

_Last night, running into Jon in the street in busy Minneapolis, he had recognised the man immediately and been unable to stop himself calling out his name._

_It had been both a joy and sadness that Jon did not immediately recognise him. And then when Mortimer had uttered his previous name, recounted their first encounter in London, Jon’s eyes had gone wide with recognition._

_It had been too late then to reconsider, for his safety if nothing else. But Jon’s gaze had turned to one of adoration and he had wanted to talk._

_Mortimer smiled against Jon’s chest. They’d done more than talk in the end._

_He’d brought Jon to his lodgings, explained how he made a fair living as a doctor. That he was happy for the most part and had found an anonymity that suited him. In turn Jon had explained he had finally joined his brother, who had established something of a thriving business in furs._

_The conversation had been pleasant and polite. And when it ended, with hunger in his eyes, Jon had leaned in to kiss him._

_Initially Mortimer had pulled back, his hands on Jon’s chest, reiterating he was a man. That he was still the same person that Jon had courted, but that he had never truly been a woman. Not in his heart and soul, even if he had wanted to be for Jon._

_Jon had kissed him again then anyway._

_He had kissed passionately and then tenderly. A kiss that would be shared between a married couple. When Jon had drawn back then to apologise for the impropriety, Mortimer had shook his head. If Jon wished for them to be married, then he would from that moment consider the man his husband._

_Jon’s hands had trembled as he had stripped Mortimer of his clothes, finding underneath the underwear packed with a straw stuffed phallus, and bandages binding his already somewhat flat chest._

_Mortimer’s loins stirred at the memory and at the promise Jon had made._

_He would stay another day before he had to return to his brother. But they would make arrangements. After all, there would always be a need for doctors along the frontier._

*

Jon held his breath as the train pulled out.

Although Peter had been kind enough not to mention it, they had both known that it might have been more convenient for them to have met the stagecoach in one of the small towns nearer to their ranch, but Jon had wanted to come all the way to the station. 

After London, he didn’t want to raise his hopes only to have Mortimer not arrive. If he could have, he’d have gone the whole way to Minneapolis and returned with him to save this trepidation. 

He walked along the platform, Peter following a few paces behind, a silent support as the dust settled and the steam cleared. 

Jon thought back to that night in Minneapolis where they had declared themselves married to each other. How the man had felt, his slight but muscular frame. The way it had felt to be inside him, the awe Jon felt at Mortimer giving so much of himself. Being so open both emotionally and physically. Allowing Jon to touch him in a way he had longed to since they had first met. In a way that made everything perfect.

He closed his eyes. Knowing now that he felt what Mortimer had. This fear of rejection. 

“Doctor Granville?” Peter’s words stirred him and he opened his eyes to see his brother stepping past him and offering a hand to the man stood before him, grinning. 

With a beaming smile, Mortimer set down his bags and shook Peter’s hand with vigor, “So good to meet you,” Mortimer said, Peter returning the smile.

When Mortimer released his hand, Peter picked up his bags and turned to carry them back to the horses and buggy they’d driven into town on. “I’ll let you get reacquainted.” He chuckled as Jon stood frozen to the spot. 

“I was afraid you might not come.” Jon muttered, resisting the urge to pull Mortimer to him. He had seen a few men close with each other in his time out trapping, but rarely in the towns and cities. 

“I had to.” Mortimer replied softly, his words tender and full of love. “You see, I didn’t tell you the whole truth in the city.”

Jon cocked his head and frowned, trying to reassure himself that Mortimer wouldn’t have come all this way to deny what was between them. 

Mortimer held out his hand to shake, propriety returning somewhat, and when Jon took it Mortimer placed his other on top. They shook slowly, Mortimer gently caressing his hand with a thumb. 

“I should confess, that in truth I didn’t consider us married from that night in the city.” Mortimer spoke in hushed tones that no one but Jon would hear as the bustle of the station began to thin out. “I considered us so for much longer than that. I believe since the day we first met in London, I knew in my heart that we were one. If only I had trusted to tell you sooner.”

Jon breathed out a sigh of relief, a smile spreading over his face. “You never left my heart.” He replied in a low growl, leaning in only slightly but enough for both of their breaths to hitch. 

Mortimer released his hand and gestured for Jon to lead the way. And there Peter was, already sat up on the buggy with Mortimer’s bags already stowed. As he helped Mortimer up, Jon knew that this journey would feel like an age, but it would be nothing compared to the time they had already spent apart. 

And when they arrived back at the Jensen ranch, it would be with his husband by his side.


End file.
